Who are They?: Made up of Made up of Jon Merkin (vocals), Mike Serman (guitar), Jeremy Stein (bass) and, Dan Kirschen (drums), The Shake is a NYC band , The Shake is a rock n’ roll band from New York City.

Why Should You Care?: This indie rock quartet brings you back to the 70′s with some classic rock. They have a kicking sound with catchy rhythms and awesome hooks. This paired with their high energy, amazing live show makes The Shake a band you must see!

How Do They Sound?
The Shake “Debutante”

The Shake – “All That I Want” (live)

ESBMusic caught up with The Shake to discuss their musical influences, inspirations, and upcoming residency at Bowery Electric every Wednesday in the month of February:

ESBM: How did you guys all come together?
TS:: The current iteration of the band only shares two members with the original lineup, Jon and Jeremy. They met during a gap year before college, attending nearby schools, and they were introduced by a mutual friend who thought they’d get along musically. Within weeks they were playing shows, and when they returned to New York, they connected and started writing for The Shake. We found Dan through another mutual friend, who knew we were in search of a drummer. Dan had just moved to the city from Rochester, and was looking to jam. We had one trial session with him, and it was love at first note. The last piece of the puzzle was Mike. He played in a local band called Haakon’s Fault, and we were big fans of his. We’d go to their shows and talk to him afterwards. We asked if he’d be cool playing in two groups, and once he agreed, we knew we’d found our missing piece.

ESBM: How did you come up with your band name?
TS: The Shake was actually Jon’s band in high school, which was mostly a cover band at the time. In the early 2000s, ‘The’ band names were quite popular, with The Strokes, Hives, Vines, etc. The Shake had a good ring to it; simple and indicative of enjoyable music. When the current band got together in college, there wasn’t even a discussion about the name, we just went with The Shake.

ESBM: How long have you playing together?
TS: Jeremy and Jon started writing together in 2005, and the band had a previous lead gutarist and drummer. Dan and Mike came on board in 2010.

ESBM: You guys have a real rock n’ roll sound. Who are your influences?
TS: We all grew up listening to the classics, but aside from that, we have different tastes and influences. Anywhere from Arctic Monkeys, Muse, Queens of the Stone Age, Rage Against the Machine – a lot of different rock perspectives. Jon has a never ending love for all bands British (the Gallagher brothers can do no wrong in his mind), and Dan likes a lot of Jazz and funk music. Mike even drew some inspiration from a recent remix of one of their tracks that a friend of The Shake did. Mike listens to a lot of rap music. That’s probably a good thing though. If we all listened to the exact same music, we wouldn’t be creating anything new.

ESBM: Which artists inspire you?
TS: Inspiration comes in a lot of forms, musically or otherwise. You can always draw inspiration from watching any of the thousands of performances from the great front men like Bowie and Jagger, and at the same time inspiration can come from a persona, or an attitude, like Lady Gaga. There’s a newer band from Sweden called Graveyard that the band has really been digging lately. They’re new, but they sound like a combination of Black Sabbath and Zeppelin. A few of us went to their show at Bowery Ballroom after a rehearsal last week and it’s like “this is how a rock show should always be.”

ESBM: What is your writing process?
TS: Most of our songs start with a riff or a melody that someone will bring in, and we’ll jam on it and expand from there. It’s all very organic the way our songs grow from little nuggets of ideas to fully formed compositions. We try to keep things as democratic as possible, so if one guy in the band isn’t feeling a new groove we’re working on, we’ll change things up or start from scratch. We need everyone on board 100% with a song if we’re gonna play it live.

ESBM: Starting February, you are playing a residency at the Bowery Electric every Wednesday night. Is this the first time doing this? How did it come about?
TS: This is a really exciting opportunity for us. The Bowery Electric has been like our home – we’ve played CMJ there the past couple of years, and it’s our favorite venue to play in the city. We’ve built a nice rapport with the folks there, and they like us. We teamed up with another local rock group called The Young Things, and built 5 bills of great bands to play each week.

ESBM: Aside from the residency in NYC, do you have any other plans for touring in 2012?
TS: We hope to move around the Northeast a bit, to Philly, DC, Boston, upstate New York, etc. We love playing to new people in new places. It’s the best way to grow the fanbase and spread the word about your music. Every free weekend we get, we’d like to be traveling.

ESBM: You will be releasing a live album from your December Mercury Lounge performance this year. Are there any other projects in the works?
TS: Well regrettably, we had to axe the Mercury Lounge recording for a number of different reasons. We’re in the process of putting a small tour across the northeast together for the spring or summertime. We’ve built a pretty good following upstate and we want to give a little love back to them in the short term. We’re also shopping around the more local summer festivals that we’d like to get involved with as well.

ESBM: You guys are big on social media, do you feel it’s a good thing for bands?
TS: Social Media’s a great tool for bands to find new fans. It allows us to reach a targeted new audience, and very easily show them a few songs. Every band should be using, not abusing, Twitter and Facebook to reinforce their efforts to grow the fanbase.

ESBM: Any last words?
TS: Come see one (or all) of our residency shows at The Bowery Electric, say hi, and pick up our 3-part EP – Sweet N Sour (you can stream that here facebook.com/theshakeband) . We’ll be there every Wednesday in February, starting on the 1st. We’ve got a really talented group of bands we’ll be playing with every week and each show will be a little different, so get your moneys worth – a $15 ticket will get you into all five shows. Get your tickets here!

For more information on The Shake check out their official website, Facebook, and Bandcamp, and Twitter pages. Check them out at the Bowery Ballroom every Wednesday in February.

The band recently released their single “Fuel The Fire” on iTunes. The song will also be on their upcoming LP Move Your Heart, Shake Your Bones.

The band has been creating buzz in their hometown and abroad, regularly drawing hundreds of fans each night, who passionately sing along with frontman Shane Lance.

Roman Holiday additionally found acclaim overseas when on tour in the U.K. they caught the ear of music industry veterans Dennis Sinnott & Adam Mills, both long-time entrepreneur’s of records, publishing and artist management. Sinnot and Mills quickly coordinated a round of showcases in the U.K, with several major labels and publishing companies in attendance.

Roman Holiday is a trip that you can’t get enough. The heart pounding melodies and group chorus’ have a rock hard, but are light and melodic enough to please anyone. Before you know it you will be singing along to the infectious lyrics.

ESBMusic had the chance to catch up with the band and discuss their background, what to expect from their new LP, and their plans for the rest of the year.

ESBM:: How did you come up with your band name?
RH: Well, first off, we love the classic movie ‘Roman Holiday’ with Audrey Hepburn. But. Truthfully. We were brainstorming band name ideas and really hadn’t come up with anything that we felt like fit us. Somehow in the process we got on the topic of Rome. So really late one night we get a text from our producer, Mark, saying “How about ‘Roman Holiday’?!”. It’s the title of a great classic movie with the beautiful Audrey Hepburn. After we all talked about it we felt like it was a name that we could run with. We’ve been Roman Holiday ever since then.

ESBM::How did the band form and start?
RH: We’ve all played music since we were young. About 3 years ago the four of us had been playing off and on together in a different local band, but not really pursuing anything seriously. Shane started to work at a recording studio in the area and began talking with the studio owner, Mark Simmons, about starting a Rock project to pour studio resources into. Shane brought up that he’d been playing music with some guys, then brought us in to play a few songs for Mark. Mark really saw potential in us. At that point we began writing, rehearsing, and recording at the studio along with Marks input. That’s essentially when we became Roman Holiday.

ESBM:: A lot of people have compared your sound to Kings of Leon. How do you feel about that?
RH: Nice! Interesting question. As with any band, people like to make comparisons. There are a handful of bands we get compared to fairly consitently, I guess every once in awhile we hear ‘Kings of Leon’. We don’t mind. They’re a good band who play real music, so it doesn’t bother us when people hear our songs and draw comparisons.

ESBM:: “Fuel The Fire” is your first single off your latest album. How was that song chosen?
RH: “Fuel The Fire” was one of the last songs to be written for our upcoming record “MOVE YOUR HEART//SHAKE YOUR BONES”. As we were writing it, we fell in love with the groove and feel of the song, and felt like people would too. It’s an easy song to ‘get’. You hear it once and you know it. And it’s easy to relate to. That’s what we feel makes a good single. When it came time to choose the first single, that song was the obvious choice.

ESBM::What can we expect of your upcoming LP?
RH: Great songs. We truly feel that way. As artists, not often do you get to the end of a creative venture and look back and feel like you laid it down just right. We feel that way about our new record. From the song writing, to the tones on the record, all the way to the way it sounds and feels coming out of a stereo, we feel great about this one. We can’t wait to get it out to you all. Literally.

ESBM:: You have possible upcoming tour plans. What places are you most excited to play?
RH: Right now we’re internally working on some tour plans, we’ll keep you all posted. We will most definitely be out again soon though! We just returned from Europe and that was a fantasic experience. I think we all have different places that we’re excited to play. But collectively, we cannot wait to tour the entire world.

ESBM:: What is your dream tour? Who do you want to play with?
RH: Our dream tour would be an extesive world arena tour. Who with? Opening for The Beatles, The Stones, Johnny Cash, M. Ward, and Justin Beiber. All true, except for Justin Beiber.

ESBM:: Seattle is a historic place for music. How did this influence your sound?
RH: Growing up here has really given us a great appreciation for good music, and well written songs. So many great artists have been born out of Seattle, and so many great artists have thrived here. It’s a city where music is loved, so it’s an easy place to be comfortable as a musician. We’ve learned to truly appreciate the heritage of the Seattle sound, while also being able to find our own, unique sound.

ESBM:: What’s the local music scene like in Seattle?
RH: It’s very diverse. The singer song-writer/folk scene is really thriving right now. A lot of great music coming out of it. But one best things about Seattle is that the city just has a true appreciation for ‘good music’, whatever the style.

ESBM:: There is an acoustic video of you guys on YouTube. Do you prefer acoustic?
RH: No. But we do very much enjoy it. It’s a fun change up. Our favorite part about doing acoustic sets is allowing people to really connect with the songs in a new way; to connect with the raw, pure, stripped down version of the song.

ESBM:: Who are you listening to right now?
RH: We all have varying taste in music, but some of the records we’re listening to at the moment are:
El Camino by The Black Keys, the new Bon Iver record, Curse Your Branches by David Bazan, Economy by John Mark McMillan, all albums by The Strokes, M. Ward, and Rubber Soul by The Beatles.

ESBM:: What are your plans for the rest of the year?
RH: To release our new record “MOVE YOUR HEART//SHAKE YOUR BONES”, to tour as much as possible, and to do whatever it takes to make the whole world fall in love with Roman Holiday.

For more information on Roman Holiday. Check out their official website and Facebook page. Get this single and all their other music now on iTunes.

Watch below and for more information on Roman Holiday. Check out their official website and Facebook page. Get this single and all their other music now on iTunes.

“Home Alive” starts off the album. The first thing coming through my mind is some awesome metal music with screams. Instead I get a clean Escape The Fate sounding band. I was taken off guard because the music is so heavy, but as I kept on listening, it grew on me. I can no longer picture this song with screams being good

“Forget The Past” starts off as what seems to be a wall-of-death type song. It quickly turns into a catchy song. This is one of the catchiest heavy songs I have heard in a very long time. I am happy to hear a band that can do it so well and often.

“Everything In Motion” is a very alternative rock song. This is a song I can picture hearing playing in people’s headphones and on the radio. Its simple and catchy. Not only that, but it is less heavy than all other songs. “What Is This Love” continues on the less-heavy feel of the album. Starting with angelic instrumentation followed by peaceful drumming, this song is not what I expected this album to end with. It is a very different feel. Going from what I expected to hear screaming, a song like this reminds me of A Day To Remember’s albums. They always seem to sneak in a softer song on their records.

Set It Free uses a lot of diversity on their self-titled album. Sounding like Escape The Fate and A Day To Remember, this band is well on their way to playing big shows. They have a great sound that is very easy to get into. I promise you this, you will be surprised by what you hear on this album.

For more information on Set It Free check out their Facebook page.

Listen below and for more information on Matt Cranstoun check out his official website, MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter pages. Get his album The Last Drop of Color now on iTunes!